Resource Management Innovations
(Lets) Give Peace a Chance: You Mean Its Not My Default Setting?
I think the practice of ‘reducing resistance to change’ has always been an uphill battle for folks who hold leadership responsibilities. Whatever the mental image that springs to mind when we speak of leadership … please know that I am not referring exclusively to the suits who make their way to work in the downtown office tower in the morning.
In my own life experience when I think of leadership I think of the women and men of integrity, passion and courage that pioneered a way … enabling a settlement. Those industrious folks who have gone before us. That applies just as well to a day in the life of RMI today as it did in any of the historical events that preceded us.
I love the old dusters. The western movies that seem to capture my heart and mind about the folks that ‘tamed’ the west. Icons like a John Wayne who could be at home as a cavalry officer, a trail boss on a cattle drive or a commando in a jungle. There is something about taking and holding new ground that speaks to the pioneer in us (or is it just me?) … and bringing about a better way of life for those who come behind us? That’s where the passion originates, that fuels the purpose.
I have also been in the change business long enough to know that just about the only person who truly appreciates it at the time is a wet baby. As an old soldier myself, I have been ‘sent in’ … to both make peace as well as keep it. As a parent with teenagers … well, don’t even get me started on the domestic stuff. I think I have always fared better in the corporate jungle downtown.
In all of these settings however, a common denominator has emerged. With, some disappointment. Why is it that peace always exacts such a great toll? Why is that something we would not just whole heartedly embrace? Well … here is an old guys conclusion:
Peace and Grace … are not our default settings.
Can we agree on that one? We can recognize it when we see it. We admire it in others … and yet we will often push back against it. Not peace per say … but giving ground to someone else in order that we establish peace.
What about Grace? (Not the TV program). What, or maybe who comes to mind when you consider grace? I tend to think in terms closer associated with elegant women. Public figures from our past who modeled it for us. In my minds eye I see a Jacquiline Kennedy Onassis. I have images of her stepping from Air Force One in the sixties with two little children in tow … always (regardless of event or circumstance) in heels, gloves and pearls. Very much reminiscent of ‘a time’ … when grace trumped all … but in contrast, to a world gone mad in a Cold War. It was a time of great social, political and cultural turmoil.
I say that to say this … that peace, is not the absence of conflict. I’m not intending an oxymoron there … as I am trying to work from the social economic spheres we live in … to the microcosm that is ourselves. Can we live at peace, in a world with distress?
I would argue we can … if we recognize that peace is not in this context an international armistice … so much as it is a social contract we have and hold within ourselves. Recognizing that we do NOT come hardwired with peace as a default setting was a bit of a revelation to me. It is absolutely available to us … but not without a cognitive, volitional choice. Let that one settle in.
I have to think differently (cognitive) and act according to that conviction (volitional). The original languages translate this as meta-nomia. Literally, a change of mind. That in turn, is what drives my behavior. I choose to. Or, I choose not to. Both are cognitive. Both are volitional. Neither are default settings. That may be regrettable, but it is helpful to know.
As a wonderful industrial psychologist professor of mine would say in our ‘motivational’ theory classes … “I really gotta wanna’.
Think about the mechanics of living in peace. With yourself (first). With the world around us (second), and what the consequence of that might be. Admittedly I was a child of the sixties … and the profound significance of the quote attributed to John Lennon in the Beatles tune: “Give peace a chance”.
It is both cognitive, and volitional, and it is not our default setting. So … as our interdependence requires it … we better get busy at it. We’ll talk about some mechanics toward that end in subsequent blogs.
Shalom;
Rick @ RMI
Posted By: Rick Kneeshaw 2010/08/07
Categories: Ricks ~ Recipes